


The Question Must Here Be Raised

by Waldo



Series: Eccedentesiast Series [2]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Angst, Canon Era, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, More Hurt Than Comfort, Period-Typical Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-21
Updated: 2017-05-21
Packaged: 2018-11-03 08:08:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10963158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Waldo/pseuds/Waldo
Summary: Takes place about six months after "The World Does Fall Apart."“When my father wrote to me in London, when I was at school there, that he was starting to think that I was, well… apparently, exactly what I am, and how disappointed he’d be if it were true, I tried so hard not to be that, that I made a series of unforgivable mistakes.”Alexander learns about Martha and Frances.





	The Question Must Here Be Raised

_Is it right to probe so deeply into Nature's secrets? The question must here be raised whether it will benefit mankind, or whether the knowledge will be harmful._ – Pierre Currie

 

It was the sort of day where personal correspondence didn’t get sorted and delivered until the sun had started to set; the letters from the generals scouting ahead and from Congress taking up almost everyone’s full attention from the time the mailbag had arrived after the mid-day meal.

By the time von Steuben had retired the troops and come barreling in cheerfully demanding that someone hand over his personal letters from home, they’d been glad to take the opportunity to abandon their quills and the letters they’d been writing in favor of the ones that had been written for them.

Alexander didn’t even look up as von Steuben began doing a loud, almost obnoxious mail call. Alexander rarely got personal post. When he’d first left his small battalion in New York City, Hercules Mulligan had written occasionally, but the last time they’d seen each other in person, he’d explained to Hamilton that with the opportunity to covertly collect information from British soldiers who patronized his shop, he needed to put some separation between himself and anyone who could end up suffering from guilt by association. He knew the locals were accusing him of being a traitor because he seemed so perfectly pleased to spend so much time in the company of the Red Coats. He knew the Red Coats would certainly have him killed if they found him to be the spy he was. Best that no one else got caught in the careful web he was weaving.

Alexander understood, of course, but it still gave him a bit of a cold lump in his stomach as everyone around him turned their attention to the news from home and loved ones. 

Once the shouting ended and everyone had dropped back into their seats and turned to their own mail, he grabbed the paybook from the collection of books at his station and began the miserable work of reconciling the money they needed and the money they had and trying to figure out how to make the shortage manageable. Not even ten minutes later, Alexander noticed Laurens stand from the table and head upstairs. The set of his shoulders, and the fact that he didn’t seem at all concerned about how the letter he carried was crinkled and wrinkled in his fist, drew an even deeper frown across Hamilton’s face.

He forced himself to finish updating the paybook before he headed up to the room the two of them shared with Lafayette. Lafayette had a small stack of letters next to his elbow, where he sat at the table, and Alexander knew from long acquaintance that the Marquis would be several hours responding to each one immediately.

Hamilton stowed the paybook, and tried to mentally shelve the dismal report he’d have to give Washington in the morning and straightened up his workspace. He forced himself to climb the stairs slowly and not give anyone else any indication that he was concerned.

Alexander walked quietly to the small room that had probably never been intended to me more than a good-sized closet. He opened the door slowly and found John stretched out on the far side of bed he, Laurens and Lafayette crammed themselves into each night. John lay on his stomach, his head pillowed on his arm, facing the wall the bed was up against. Alexander wondered for a moment if John wasn’t trying to become part of either the wall or the bed.

“Do you want to tell me what was in that letter?” Alexander hitched himself up on the other side of the bed.

“No,” John bit out coldly, grabbing the letter from where it lay, face down, next to him and shoving it under the pillow he was using.

Alexander had a brief moment of being annoyed by his usually-friendly compatriot’s rudeness, but let it pass. He wanted to believe that if he were patient John would tell him eventually. He tried to lighten the mood. “Oh, so we keep secrets from each other now, then?”

Alexander had never in his life been so assured, so quickly, that he’d taken the absolutely wrong tack with someone. John’s shoulders hunched visibly under his navy blue coat and both hands closed into white-knuckled fists. Hamilton had a brief moment of being exceedingly grateful that both hands stayed where they were on the pillow instead of connecting with his jaw. He’d seen John get worked up enough by an argument to start swinging and it had never ended up well for his opponent. More than once it hadn’t ended up too well for John either, but it never ended up well for the other man.

Alexander never wanted to be the ‘other man’. Not with John, and not just because he knew John fought better on a bad day than he ever did, but because they were friends. More than friends. And he never wanted to see them so at odds that it had come to something as low as throwing punches.

John’s coiled energy suddenly exploded and he rolled over and sat up in one movement, almost slamming his head into the wall as he threw himself against it, and turned to look at Alexander.

 _Okay_ , Alexander thought, they weren’t going hit each other, but they were clearly about to have a louder-than-average discussion about this.

“Yes, Alexander. Yes, we do. You know damn well we do.”

Alexander had to mentally backtrack to figure out what John was referring to. _Oh, right keeping secrets._ He tried to figure out what it was that John was alluding to. He leaned down to tug off his boots to give himself a minute to think. He had them both lined up against the wall and had pulled himself up to sit next to John, leaving almost a foot between them in deference to John’s mood, before he gave up.

“I don’t keep anything of importance from you. If I’ve done something wrong, I’m afraid you’ll need to be more specific if I’m to make amends.” Alexander watched an orange-silhouetted cloud drift across the setting sun through the one small window the room afforded them.

“Alexander you tell me almost nothing of yourself! I’ve asked three times where you come from and every time you’ve avoided the question. Oh, I know you like to tell everyone you’ve come to the war from New York City, but you certainly don’t speak like you’re from anywhere near here.”

Hamilton was pretty certain that this wasn’t the root cause of John’s upset, but clearly John getting angry at his avoidance of talking about personal history was a prominent symptom. He also made a mental note to redouble his efforts to eradicate the last few traces of his Caribbean accent that still had a tendency to surface when he was very tired or under a great deal of stress. And since he was one of General George Washington’s senior aides de camp, it was usually a good bet that one, if not both, of those conditions was constantly being met.

Alexander studied an ink stain on the heel of his right hand. “I… I always meant to tell you. Privately. Every time the subject has come up, we’ve been somewhere public, and while I feel it would be safe to speak of this with you, I prefer it not be a topic for public consumption.”

“You make it sound like you’re about to tell me that you’re an escapee from some Georgia prison settlement.”

“While not my first choice of colonies, it would be easier to tell people I was Southern than to tell them the truth.”

Alexander rolled his eyes, glad that their side-by-side position made it quite difficult for John to see him be so uncouth. He hadn’t meant to slight the southern colonies, at least not so openly in front of John, but he just couldn’t understand some of their ways of thinking. Not to mention, he was more than a little chagrinned that in his efforts to bring John out of his own sour mood, he’d ended up putting himself into one of his own.

John sighed and slouched against the wall behind him. After a long, pregnant pause he asked , “Alexander we are alone up here. Where could you possibly be from that you would be so embarrassed to speak of?”

Alexander took a deep breath and squared his shoulders against the wall. “I came to New York from St. Croix. Before that I lived on Nevis.”

John sat up suddenly at Alexander’s words and turned enough to see Alexander’s face. “Holy hell, Alexander! When you told me you’d survived a hurricane I had no idea you meant the one in St. Croix. I saw several newspaper articles about that. My father even mentioned it to me in a letter when I was away at school. Good god, no wonder you don’t like storms.”

Alexander just shrugged. On one hand, he was heartened that even though John had been cross with him a minute ago, he seemed quite willing to let go of his pique in light of this new information. On the other hand, he was no closer to figuring out what had driven John up here in the first place. After a few minutes he added, “I know I don’t need to ask this of you, but it would help put my mind at ease… Please don’t speak of this to anyone else. There are far too many people who think the islands are uncivilized for one reason or another. And perhaps they are in some ways.” He shrugged. “I… I’ve worked hard to make myself useful to the General. I’d prefer people not start questioning my loyalty to our cause or my fitness for the post.”

John leaned back against the wall, his hands in fists again. “Tell me which of those bastards suggested that you were anything less the best person Washington could ever find for his right-hand-man.”

Alexander studied the ink stain on his hand again. He supposed he’d eventually have to get around to telling John why that particular word, even when applied to others, crawled under his skin, but this wasn’t the discussion they needed to be having at the moment. “It’s not important,” he finally answered. “And none of this is why you came up here to get away from the riff-raff reading their personal correspondence in the much-better-lit parlor.” He knew John was trying to be subtle, but Alexander could see him sliding one hand under the pillow he was practically sitting on now to make sure the letter he’d received was still tucked securely out of sight.

After a silent near eternity, John asked him quietly, “Alexander, are you ashamed of the… the… things… When Lafayette is away from camp… Are you ashamed?”

Alexander blew out a long breath as he considered the question. The sun was almost below the horizon before he finally said confidently. “No. I am not ashamed. I know that it is both a sin and unlawful, and that we could both be hanged, or at the very least, drummed out of the Army if we were ever discovered, so that makes discretion – even secrecy – of the utmost importance. But I cannot find it in myself to feel shame for what I feel for you. Some people – most people – would tell me that I should, but I find that being with you, in any and every way, makes this miserable existence so much easier to bear that I cannot find any shame in it.”

John’s hand slid over tentatively and curled around Hamilton’s. They were silent as the room grew completely dark, yet neither felt the need to light the lamp. After long minutes of watching tree branches shiver in the rising moonlight, Alexander summoned up the courage to ask, “Do you?”

John’s silence told him all he needed to know. Alexander wanted to press further, but found himself unable.

John broke the silence several moments later. “When we were at that reception last month… Did… did you fancy any of the women there?”

Alexander let out a little laugh. “Several.”

“If we weren’t breaking camp the week after the that, would you have courted one of them?” John’s voice seemed sad, resigned to the answer he had already inferred.

Alexander felt a little lightheaded when he began to feel like he knew where John was driving the conversation. He squeezed John’s hand in his. “You are not… a passing interest. You are not simply someone to … keep me warm at night until some young lady catches my eye.” He squeezed John’s hand again. “You matter to me. You matter a great deal.”

John nodded. “I know. I don’t doubt that. You have never once given me reason to believe that the affection between us isn’t as true as the ardor. But you also see yourself as having… a bride? A family? A wife you can stroll through town with on your arm, that you can introduce to the General?”

Alexander couldn’t deny it. He wasn’t sure how to explain the nights where he’d stared at long shadows on the walls and ceiling wondering if there would ever be a way he could have both of the things his heart insisted were equally important: John and family. “I… John, I…”

“It’s okay, Alexander,” John finally whispered, trying to let him off the hook. “I’m actually glad for you. You’ll be happy with her – whomever she may end up being – and live a gloriously normal life with sons who probably will inherit your inability to stop talking even when it’s in their best interest and daughters so beautiful and clever you’ll be forever dealing with potential suitors for them.”

Alexander darted a quick glance over to John just in time to see the moonlight reflect off a single tear that refused to roll off his lower eyelashes. He scooted over to press his arm against John’s and pulled John’s head onto his shoulder. He wasn’t sure what to say. He was fairly sure nothing he could say would make John feel any better about the future for them after the war.

John sniffed before saying, “It really is okay, Alexander. I’m actually glad for you. I want to see you happy. I want to see you have everything you want.” Another long pause before he finally added, “Because I can’t see those things for myself. I don’t want to go to my father’s high society dinners with a beautiful woman hanging off my arm and hanging on my words. I don’t want to come back home at the end of the day and have a half-dozen children running up to tell me what they’ve learned that day or who hit who with a toy horse. None of that feels right to me.”

Alexander spent his adolescence in St. Croix. A place long known as an exile for sodomites. He couldn’t even pretend he didn’t know exactly what John was talking about. But understanding what he was talking about didn’t mean he had the slightest idea how John felt. Alexander had always assumed that what he felt for men – as often as not buried and forgotten as soon as possible under the thoughts of some attractive girl who giggled at something he said – would eventually pass and he’d be perfectly fine leading a very normal life with a wife and as many children as she could give him. His love for John had begun to make him question his ability to simply ‘grow out’ of his need for the love and touch of someone who could truly understand what he experienced as a soldier and as a man, but he’d convinced himself not to dwell too long on making that decision until the choice was forced upon him.

John was whispering so quietly in the dark, his face now half buried in Alexander’s shoulder, that Alexander almost didn’t hear him start again. “When my father wrote to me in London, when I was at school there, that he was starting to think that I was, well… apparently, exactly what I am, and how disappointed he’d be if it were true, I tried so hard not to be that, that I made a series of unforgivable mistakes.”

Alexander turned his head and kissed the soft curls at John’s temple. “I cannot imagine anything you could do that would be unforgivable.” He reached up and began stroking John’s hair to try and comfort him. He couldn’t ever remember seeing John this despondent. He’d seen him angry enough to fight people he’d called friends on better days. He’d seen him grief-stricken when someone they knew well fell in battle. But this kind of flat acceptance that he would spend his life miserable and alone and despised was something Alexander wasn’t sure he’d ever seen … since his mother. His stomach turned when he realized that the first person he’d let himself truly care for, truly love, faced the same kind of ostracization for whom they were able to love and whom they couldn’t. How the public definition of family and happiness and success could eat away at the actual things when found unconventionally.

He felt a little guilty for having a plan for himself that would allow him to be happy without challenging that perception.

“Alexander, there… there was – is – this girl in London. Her family is friends with my father… He wrote them, insisting that they introduce us. I met with them for tea or dinner several times and then… one night when I was staying at her parents’ home she came into my room. At first I was so stupid I wasn’t even sure what was happening, but once I understood what she wanted… why she was there, I thought it would be the opportunity to be the son my father wanted me to be.” John stopped, chewing on his lower lip, staring at the moon.

Not sure what to say, Alexander just kissed the top of his head.

“I didn’t see her again for a while after that night. At the end of the school term I went to her parents’ house, for what I thought would be the last time, to tell her I was returning home to join the war effort. I could tell when I looked at her something was… wrong. Different.” John took several deep breaths. “She told me she’d been trying to write to me for several weeks, but couldn’t seem to find the words that to tell me that she’d be having my child.”

Alexander wasn’t sure why his heart seized up at that admission. He tried to hide any outward expression of his shock. 

“I married her that week. I couldn’t let her face the shame of bearing a bastard because I thought I had to prove something to my father. The week after that I was aboard the first ship I could find heading west.” John scrubbed his hands over his face.

Alexander hoped this story was coming to a close sometime soon. He couldn’t imagine how torturous this had to be for John. 

John shifted quickly, snatching the letter out from under the pillow where he’d stashed it. “And now my father wants to know when I’ll be coming home to South Carolina and when I’ll be bringing my wife and daughter over to live with me.” John looked like the idea was enough to make him physically ill. “I hate what I’ve done to Martha. I hate that there’s a child who has a father that can’t abide the idea of living with her mother, of… of… living that lie for the rest of my life. How am I to do that Alexander? How do I pretend that I wish to share her bed for the rest of my life? How do I go to all these ‘events’ my father loves to drag me to and introduce my ‘lovely wife’ that I want so very, very little to ever do with again? That I would be so very happy if they were to remain in London and find another way to be happy that had nothing to do with me? I hate the thought of being so cold and callous to a child that had nothing to do with any of this that I would abandon her, but I want so badly for them to be free to find someone who wants them as much as they want him.”

“It isn’t callous to want their happiness,” Alexander said, grateful to find something he felt confident in saying. “And a decision in this matter does not need to be made tonight.” He brushed a stray curl back behind John’s ear. “When you write to your father, make sure he understands how critical your place is here at Washington’s side. Defer any decisions about what should happen after the war until, we have in fact, won the war.” He tugged John closer and ran his hand up and down his arm a few times in sympathy. John leaned back on his shoulder and for a long time they did nothing but watch the moon rise.

Alexander started when the door flew open almost an hour later. Lafayette, in all his youth and enthusiasm stood backlit by the sconces in the hallway holding up a large plate piled with food in one hand and three tankards of ale in the other. “Lieutenant Miller has killed a pig in the woods!” he announced. “And neither of you came to dinner, so I see to it that dinner comes to you.”

John and Alexander pulled themselves apart and sat up.

“Thank you, Lafayette,” Alexander responded for both of them. He was fairly sure that getting John to talk any more about his wife and child and plans for after the war would be damn near impossible, even though it hardly felt like they’d resolved anything. And he was starting to wonder if he should feel guilty for sleeping with a married man. He cast a quick glance over at John who was pushing a piece of roasted pork around on the plate without making much of an effort to actually eat it. He decided John was carrying enough guilt regarding that union for both of them.

He shook himself out of his thoughts as he realized Lafayette was at least half way through a story that had something to do with a large fish that had jumped onto the deck of the ship he’d crossed to America on. He tried to push back such weighty thoughts and listen to Lafayette – who’s story seemed to have taken some weird turn to something about the chickens kept on board the ship – and tried to pretend that his heart wasn’t breaking over the fact that the person he loved most in the world would probably never find a way to be truly happy.

**Author's Note:**

> "A most violent & destructive Hurricane happened the 31st August in the West Indies. Antigua, St. Kitts, Nevis, Tortola, Montserrat (English), St. Thomas’s & St. Croix (Danish), St. Eustatia (Dutch Islands have suffered beyond the effects of any former Tempest & some of the French at St. Domingo. This will produce new Bankruptcies in England. Very large Sums have been lent upon Mort[g]ages of Estates in those Islands & a vast Amount is due to England in the common course of commerce much of which will now be for ever lost."
> 
> \- Henry Laurens to John Laurens, in a letter dated December 15, 1772
> 
> The hurricane mentioned here is the one that ultimately prompted Alexander Hamilton’s voyage to the American colonies.


End file.
